Not just power: 2026 Mercedes power unit also ahead in terms of weight, here’s how

Will it be a replay of 2014? That Mercedes could count on a very competitive power unit in view of 2026 is a fact that was already established in the F1 paddock in 2024. Carlos Sainz, for example, forced to put on a good face in terms of seats available, nevertheless ‘invested’ in Williams and Flavio Briatore in Alpine went so far as to disavow an entire factory in Viry-Chatillon by deciding to take the ‘shortcut’ represented by Mercedes supply at power unit level. Mercedes raced for three years in Formula E, winning two championships and certainly the experience gained in the electric series will have given excellent foundations to a 2026 power unit which promises to be a very powerful weapon not only for having exploited the regulatory ‘hole’ in terms of compression ratio, an aspect on which the FIA ​​will not intervene, at least not immediately. Today’s edition of Il Corriere della Sera in an article by Giorgio Terruzzi and Daniele Sparisci, in fact, reports another non-secondary detail relating to the power unit built in Brixworth: “The Mercedes engine is given the advantage both for a particular lightness obtained in the design phase thanks to an innovative architecture and the materials used, and because of a performance that would exploit yet another ‘hole’ in the regulation (compression ratio increased when hot, with increase in power) discussed yesterday by the manufacturers in a meeting with the FIA without significant outcome. There will be another meeting in early February after the Barcelona tests.”